The Great Gatsby- Alternate Ending
by purpledreamr
Summary: What if George Wilson wasn't the one who had murdered Jay Gatsby?


**A/N: An alternate ending to _The Great Gatsby_. Apologies in advance for any logical fallacies or inconsistencies as I wrote this on a whim-a day before my final exam. **

It seemed apparent to all that George Wilson was the one who had done the deed. Tom Buchanan himself had admitted—well, boasted- to me that he had snitched on Gatsby. Wilson had shot himself by way of assuaging his own guilt. It was no mystery; it was case closed from the very beginning.

But something else was tugging at the back of my mind and an uncomfortable feeling had settled in my stomach. Nothing wrong with applying Occam's Razor in what seemed like a simple case of a murder-suicide: except I knew it wasn't.

After the funeral, I packed my bags and headed to Chicago, where I planned to settle down quietly and continue writing Gatsby's biography. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do after that. I just knew I didn't want to go back to selling bonds. After all that had passed, variations of the cliché 'life is short' struck me so deeply I knew that I couldn't spend the rest of my life dabbling in something which only lent temporal material satisfaction.

I hardly recognized her when I bumped into her- she looked much the worse for wear. The shine in her curls and glow framing her angelic countenance had significantly dulled. It took me a full ten seconds before I blurted out her name.

"You don't look so swell." I heard myself say. Good one, Nick. Lovely way to start a conversation with a potentially grieving lady.

"Oh, Nick." Her eyes suddenly welled up with tears. "Do you got a minute to chat?"

I swallowed. "I sure do. Where are you staying at?"

Daisy insisted on coming over to my place instead—a humble abode just on the outskirts of town, an absolute downgrade from the garish Buchanan mansion she was used to.

"I apologise for the waterworks—I'm just particularly emotional because it's that time of the month, you see." She explained hurriedly, dabbing at her tear-stained cheeks with a stark embarrassment that I had never witnessed in Daisy Buchanan.

I knew I was treading on thin ice. "How have you been?"

"Well, just the usual." She said, a vacant look in her eyes. "We've moved out here but nothing much's changed, you know?" she cracked a wry smile—a smile which concealed so much melancholy my heart ached.

The next quarter of an hour was almost too painful to sit through. Exchanging superfluous pleasantries and sipping weak tea felt like trying to go to bed after watching a Hitchcock film.

I couldn't help myself.

"Gatsby's funeral… it was something."

"I'd imagine it would be."

I was almost afraid to look at her expression. "It was actually rather…pathetic, if you will. All his regular party attendees… not a single one of them showed up. Not even his own boss."

"That's not really surprising, is it? I'd expect a man like him to have flattering sycophants for friends." Her hands were trembling noticeably as she drew something from her purse. A cigar, perched almost daintily between two fingers as she scrambled for a lighter.

I was not a cruel man by any stretch. At least, I didn't think it was. But something in me just snapped. It was a bizarre combination of everything- Daisy's delusional avoidance, Tom Buchanan's laissez faire attitude towards the tragedy, my own repressed indignance—and Gatsby's tainted legacy. All that he had worked hard for, worked towards just to potentially get a highly idealized someone who would never love him back with the same force.

"Is it really that much of a mammoth task to admit that you killed him?"

"Whatever are you saying, Nick?"

"I know Tom told George about Gatsby. But George never shot him. You did. And Tom covered it up for you."

"Nick, this is not funny. I can't believe you would make such a blatant accusation! To suggest that I would kill someone who was once so close to me?" Daisy's hands curled into tight fists, the cigar butt still flaming. "Why Nick, I'd imagine you would be so grieved, but I didn't think you would be standing here accusing me of homicide!"

"There's nobody but you and me here." I said coolly.

"Do not do this to me, Nick Carraway. You know how much he meant to me." She inhaled sharply, looking like I had delivered a tight slap to her face.

"You knew you had been laboring under an ideal, a false hope. You couldn't wait any longer for him. When he finally had the means to get you back, you stabbed him in the back. He literally sacrificed himself for you. And you killed him."

"Carraway, you're bothering me." Daisy's pale face was inches away from mine.

"Would you admit it?"

"I did not lay a finger on Jay Gatsby." She swallowed loudly, her voice trembling as she said his name. "What happened to him was tragic, and I admit I was rattled, but I have nothing to do with how he passed. He was going to call me after his swim."

My blood instantly ran cold.

"How could you have known that, since the gardener drains the pool in the summer?"

I had never witnessed before the desperate look of a helpless victim which almost immediately morphed into a calculated demeanor- the tears in her eyes and chilling smile as the cigarette fell to the ground, headfirst, and the first flames licked away at the moth-eaten carpet by my feet.


End file.
